The present invention relates generally to systems for routing requests and more particularly to a system for routing requests using automated classification and profile matching in a networked environment.
There are many environments where there are so-called help desks for allowing a seller of goods or services to provide expert help to customers. Oftentimes customer support for such a system, such as a call center or help center for e-mail routing, voice calling, or the like is manual. Typically such customer support requires a large number of experts that can interact with the customers on a variety of problems. As a result, the experts must be versed over a broad spectrum of information related to the particular problem.
In the alternative, the experts are narrowly focused on specific items of interest; however, this requires that the customer either be experienced enough to identify the particular menu item that is most applicable or search through all of the menu items to obtain information. This is oftentimes time consuming and therefore discouraging to the customer. It is desirable to be able to shift customers to self-service solutions in which they can sift through some simple questions to get to the most relevant information quickly, rather than being required to go through several different menu items to finally get to the particular item of interest. Particularly as the Internet has grown, customers have desired extensive web-enabled services for products and services, and are becoming increasingly familiar therewith.
Accordingly, what is desired in making inquiries through such customer support is an increase in efficiency and reduced cost. It also is desirable to be able to provide instant help for recurrent problems that a user may have. Finally, what is also desired is to be able to provide a direct connection to a competent advisor, thereby allowing instant access to the relevant information. Finally, any solution should be a low cost, high benefit solution that can be used via the Internet. Accordingly, the present invention addresses such a need.
A system and method for routing customer requests to advisors is disclosed. The system and method comprises at least one customer server process for receiving customer requests and classifying the information to produce a classified request, the classified request comprising the original request and at least one attribute. The system further comprises at least one advisor server process for receiving the classified requests, comparing the classified requests by associated profiles from the advisors to find matching attributes with classified request, and creating a connection between the requesting customer and at least one advisor, the at least one advisor having submitted a profile with matching attributes.
A routing system in accordance with the present invention reduces response time to a problem and saves advisor time. The system also provides for an automatic response to frequent problems at increased efficiency. Finally, a system and method in accordance with the present invention is widely applicable to online shopping and customer service.